


Feeling (Say it Now)

by euhemeria



Series: And, In Sign of Ancient Love, Their Plighted Hands They Join [67]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/F, References to Addiction, again... like very mild???, insofar as any addiction can ever be said to be mild, only the mildest but eh tagging to be safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-03-08 04:02:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18886786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euhemeria/pseuds/euhemeria
Summary: On her morning run, Fareeha turns the problem over and over in her mind, cold pre-dawn air burning her lungs.  She is alone, as she always is, and for once she is grateful for as much, because a sudden thought has her stop dead in her tracks.Or,Because they love each other, Fareeha and Angela have a difficult conversation.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [binarylazarus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/binarylazarus/gifts).



> sorry for the like two week break in posting things... ive been working on a big multichapter fic and all the fics i had prepared for while i was working on it were nsfw... but then i was like "oh its ramadan and its strongly implied fareeha is muslim i should maybe wait to post literally any of these" so anyway... i had to find time to write smtg else new while still grinding out 10k a week on the multichapter thing LMAO (since it is a collab... which means deadlines)
> 
> but anyway im here and i did not die and this is something ive been meaning to write for a while. originally it was gonna be fluffy and funny but then i cut out all the fluff and humor (and saved it for another fic from a different pov)... whoops

Something is wrong.  The time Fareeha has spent in the field has given her a good sense for that, the strange sort of quality to silence that precedes trouble, the itching feeling at her back and the tension in her muscles when she tries to relax.  What, specifically, that something is, Fareeha cannot place, and it is made all the more disconcerting by the fact that Fareeha feels this way in her _home_ , when she is on base and in her quarters, rather than on the battlefield. 

Here, she should be safe.  Here, she should be able to let her guard down.  Here, she should not worry, if only for a moment, should be able to rest and to be _Fareeha_ and not _Pharah_ , able to cast aside the sense of constant danger, the vigilance that saves her life elsewhere but is exhausting to live with otherwise.

(Her mother never could set it aside, that feeling of danger, let it grow and grow until it consumed her, swallowed her up and spit her out as someone else entirely.  Fareeha _needs_ to be able to feel safe, if she wants to avoid that fate.)

What _should_ be and what _is_ are all too often not the same.

At first, she cannot place it, the feeling that something is off, and it worries her—does more than worry her, in fact.  Fareeha is a trusting person, not prone to suspicion, but suddenly she finds herself looking at all of her teammates in a new light. 

They are a small organization, this new recalled Overwatch, small enough that she feels she knows everyone one of the members of their little organization well—and small enough that a single traitor could bring them down.

Not that Fareeha believes there is a traitor, specifically, but she only feels she can relax when she is alone, always feels as if she is being _watched_.  The fear makes sense, too, given her history.  Helix was betrayed not once, but twice.  First, someone helped to unleash the Anubis God Program, nearly triggering a second Omnic Crisis, and resulting in the deaths of several members of her squad, and then, a few months after Fareeha left, one of the survivors of that incident went on to betray the organization, too, aiding in the escape of Doomfist.

Once a person has known betrayal, it is difficult not to see it everywhere.

(Fareeha hates that, she does, hates that she feels like she was robbed of some of her ability to trust.  The face she shows to the world is one of optimism, marked by her belief that humanity is worth saving, is worth risking her life for, that to serve them is an honor which brings her pride.  For the most part, this is true.  Most people, Fareeha knows, are good people, and most people are worth laying down her life for—and she would rather risk dying for someone who is the exception, than fail to save the majority of people who are good in the world—but it haunts her, now, that feeling that not everyone is as they seem.  Some nights she wakes in a cold sweat, having dreamed that they were betrayed again, that she could not save everyone, again, and this time she has lost not only her comrades but her _family._ )

She tries not to think about it too much.  Overwatch is her family, her friends, and yes, the original Overwatch might have been betrayed, but a culture of distrust never helped anyone.  After all, she has seen what it did to Jack, that paranoia, the totality of his isolation, convinced that the only person he could rely on—save for himself—is a ghost.  To give in to that sort of fear would destroy Fareeha more surely than any betrayal.

Still, she is perhaps more vigilant than usual, watches everyone around her with a bit more care, looking for anything out of the ordinary, just in case.

Somehow, it still surprises her to notice that something is, indeed, amiss.

_Angela_.

Her own partner is watching her strangely, these days, giving her the most inscrutable of looks when Fareeha enters their shared quarters after a long, stressful afternoon, or frowning in her direction after she returns to base after a mission with Jesse.  Something is _off_ , Fareeha can tell, but it does not show in Angela’s words, nor do her actions change, other than the occasional glance that Fareeha catches out of the corner of her eye, out of place in the situation.

Even when everyone else in the room is laughing, the look Angela gives her is so very deeply sad.

At first, Fareeha is worried that something is wrong with Angela, goes through a list of warning signs in her head, but just as quickly as she considers them, they are discarded.  Nothing else has changed about Angela’s behavior, save for that look, and she is not giving it to anyone _else._ So this must, then, have something to do with _Fareeha_ , and not simply be internal to Angela.

But what could it be?

Nothing in Fareeha’s routine has changed, of late.  She is still the same woman she ever was, and no matter how hard she thinks about it, she cannot recall anything she might have said or done to provoke this.

She considers the events of the past week over a cigarette—an old habit, one she still indulges in sometimes when she is particularly stressed or anxious.  Given the circumstances, those occasions are becoming more frequent than once they were. 

Still, it is not a _daily_ occurrence, like it was before her acceptance into the Raptora program, so Fareeha does not feel too badly about it.  She is doing well to have cut back as much as she did, and the rare indulgence in a vice is not such a bad thing.

Angela, she knows, disapproves, and the _look_ she gives Fareeha is even stronger when she returns to their quarters smelling of smoke, but Angela is already bothered by something, so what does it matter?

(Or, she tries to tell herself that, but it is hard to know that she is disappointing her lover, and so Fareeha tries harder to hide the habit, with limited success.)

If Angela is going to be sad with Fareeha, or angry, and not say why, then why should Fareeha be the one to lose sleep over it?  She cannot correct any behavior that she does not even know is a problem.

But then, she thinks again and realizes that there is still nothing which has changed in her own routine, nothing that might have caused this, and she is back to worrying, to wondering if there is something very wrong with her lover that Angela is unwilling to talk about.  Maybe that sadness is not about Fareeha at all, and Fareeha only thinks it is because Angela has to be looking at her for Fareeha to see the look in her eyes.

Is this mood a general one?  Is Angela more melancholy than usual around everyone?  It is hard to say, because when Angela is feeling any sort of negative emotion she finds something else to occupy herself, withdraws into her work, diverts her sadness, her anger, her fear, and does not allow even _herself_ to acknowledge such—and, because Angela so often overworks herself, it is harder still to pinpoint when she is doing so because she is upset, or because she is near to a breakthrough, or simply because she is restless.  Fareeha does not know if Angela herself knows the difference, sometimes, is so concerned with escaping her feelings that she separates herself from them entirely, to the point that an unwillingness to name them becomes an inability. 

For all of this, Fareeha cannot fault her, for she has all too often done the same.

(In fact, Fareeha is perhaps the worse offender of the two of them, when it comes to such things.  Rather than simply being out of touch of what it is she is thinking and feeling, Fareeha foists all her emotions surrounding the negative impacts of her work onto another part of her identity entirely.  It is not for _Fareeha_ to worry about the things _Pharah_ struggles with, not in her hours off the clock, because if she let herself be caught up in the guilt she feels over her failures, the people she failed to protect, she does not think she could survive it.)

But, even if Fareeha cannot _fault_ Angela for dealing poorly with her own emotions, she can be vexed by the situation.  After all, it might be that Angela has not discussed this with her because she is unsure how to put the situation into words, or even really aware herself of what the problem is, but it might also very well be the case that Angela has decided for herself that it is too difficult or uncomfortable a problem to share, and is deliberately hiding it from Fareeha.

It would not be the first time.  Although Fareeha would like to believe that they have made a good deal of progress, over the course of their relationship, neither she nor Angela is particularly good at reaching out for help, nor at vocalizing their thoughts and feelings.  Both of them would prefer to ignore such problems until they go away, to deal with them quietly and non-disruptively as possible.  Whether that is their natural tendency, or the result of years in military institutions, where discussing such feelings might have resulted in discharge, Fareeha is not sure, but the end result is the same: she and her partner both struggle to rely on one another, even knowing it is safe to do so.

A year, two, does not undo a lifetime of silence.

But they try, they do.  They have to, for the sake of one another, because if it is difficult to struggle alone, then it is worse to witness someone that one cares deeply for do the same.  Neither of them is well suited to powerlessness or inaction, so Fareeha has learned to open up, not for her own sake but in order to worry Angela less, and Angela has tried, at least to do the same.

(Of the two of them, Fareeha thinks that it is she herself who has adjusted to such easier, but perhaps that makes sense.  She learned not to talk about what it was she was feeling in the military, once she was already an adult, but Angela spent nearly her entire life alone.  It does not hurt, either, that Fareeha has also Ana, whose attempts at reconciliation have forced the both of them to indulge in far more emotional honesty than makes them comfortable.)

That Angela has tried does not mean that she has always succeeded, and so Fareeha again finds herself worrying—this time not that Angela is angry with her, or hiding something from her, but that her partner is simply too overwhelmed by whatever it is she is dealing with to ask for help.

If that is the case, Fareeha should say something, _do_ something, help Angela by bridging the gap for her, helping to make her comfortable enough to discuss her problems.  In her way, Angela has often done the same for her, allowing Fareeha’s head to lie in her lap in the evening after a series of long days, talented surgeon’s fingers rubbing soothing circles into her scalp whilst she waits patiently for the conversation to begin, medical journal pulled up on her tablet in the other hand so that if Fareeha is not ready, yet, there is not so much pressure. 

Doing the same for Angela is not so simple—although she seems to enjoy giving physical affection, she is not always open to receiving it, needs to be in the right mood to allow herself to be held, or to request it, and at such a point she is probably already open to speaking—and Fareeha has found that, in general, if she pushes, then she is more likely to discourage Angela from speaking than anything else.  For the most part, Fareeha tries not to let that frustrate her, tries to indirectly encourage Angela to share her thoughts and feelings as best she is able, but that is made decidedly more difficult by the fact that she does not know, currently, what it is she would be pushing towards.

So it is back to observing.  She tries to watch Angela in interactions with others, to see if there is anything different in the way she treats them and—it is difficult.  Fareeha is an observant person, but she is hardly an objective observer, now, and that makes it far harder to know what it is she sees and what it is she simply wants to be seeing.

(If she could, she would simply ask other people how they feel Angela has been acting lately, but no one has ever accused Overwatch of being too impersonal, and an unfortunate side effect of everyone knowing and being fairly close to one another is the gossip.  If other people start talking about Angela, or their relationship, it will not be good.  For all that their friends are well meaning, their attempts at intervention would likely only escalate the situation, whatever it is, and if Angela found out that _Fareeha_ were the source of speculation about her person, it would be perceived as a betrayal of trust.  Not to mention the fact that if she asks people if Angela seems sad lately, there is the problem of confirmation bias.)

What Fareeha can see is inconclusive.  On the one hand, it seems that Fareeha is the only one that Angela is casting long looks at, going so far as to look away from conversations with other people to make a thoughtful, sad face in Fareeha’s direction, if she knows that she is being watched.  On the other hand, it does indeed seem that there is a general shift in Angela’s mood towards sadness, and that much is not isolated towards the looks she gives Fareeha but is, rather, a problem bigger than herself.

Or perhaps whatever it is that troubles Angela about Fareeha is making her sad more generally?

That is not helpful.  Fareeha cannot think what it is she could possibly be doing that makes Angela sad, all of a sudden, or what Angela might have realized about her that might cause the same reaction.  On her morning run, she turns the problem over and over in her mind, cold pre-dawn air burning her lungs.  She is alone, as she always is, and for once she is grateful for as much, because a sudden thought has her stop dead in her tracks, and were she running with anyone behind her it would surely have resulted in a painful collision for them both.

She knows where she has seen the look Angela has given her before, it is in fact very familiar to her, although she has never had it directed at herself.  What it is she sees when Angela looks at her so sadly is the same face her father made at her mother throughout much of Fareeha’s childhood, when they were no longer in a happy relationship but in fact on their way to divorce, Ana’s Overwatch duties increasingly coming between them.

Is Angela going to break up with her? 

Surely not.  They are happy together, are they not?  They fight from time to time, of course, but so does every couple, and maybe they have been having less sex, but Angela has been upset by something, and Fareeha is not particularly interested, either, occupied as she has been with what it is that is going on, and maybe their communication is not perfect, but they try and—

—And the more Fareeha thinks about it, the more all of these things sound like excuses made by a person who is most certainly on their way to a break -up.

But why?

It is impossible for Fareeha to name anything between them which has changed significantly in the past few months, and with such, a reason that Angela might _want_ to end their relationship.

Another thought, then, that like her father, Angela does not want things to end at all, but recognizes such as a necessity.  It would make more sense than something having _changed._ Instead, something which has always been there has slowly become intolerable, in the sort of way that when one realizes something about someone, one cannot stop noticing it. 

What Angela has realized about their relationship, Fareeha does not know, just as she cannot be entirely certain what it was that ended the marriage between her parents.  That was a slow death, over a period of years, and by the time Fareeha realized that it was inevitable that her parents were going to divorce, the papers had been finalized for some time.  Never did they argue, so far as Fareeha can remember, but the looks her father gave her mother grew sadder and more reproachful in the months, years leading up to their permanent split.  She thinks it was Ana’s work that came between them, although she cannot be certain, her father gradually more unwilling to come in second behind Overwatch, but she cannot know for certain.

Is that what is the problem between she and Angela?  Surely not, for their work is similar enough, and they have always agreed that although they are very important to one another, doing their part to better the world will always be the first priority of each of them, not their relationship.  If it proves necessary, to continue feeling as if they are free to go and do as they must, then they will break up.  This, they both know, and before now, the thought has always been a comforting one, to Fareeha, who needs to feel as if she is useful in order to be happy. 

Now, she worries, wonders if Angela feels trapped by her, and wants to leave.

As of now, Fareeha does not _think_ that Overwatch is intolerable for Angela.  What they are doing in the Recall is different than what they did before, and so many of Angela’s primary concerns ought to be assuaged.  They do not allow international law to paralyze them, to force them into inaction when they know that intervention would save lives, but neither do they consider force to be the only solution to their problems.  They are not weaponizing her technology, nor are they undervaluing it.  They are close, all of them, but they do not allow that closeness to hinder their work.

But they did argue, three weeks ago, about whether or not Overwatch ought to seek reinstatement, if they ought to try, over time, now that public opinion is improving, to become a legitimate organization once again.  Fareeha thought—thinks—that they ought to, that such a thing is what is right, and good, and that the resources they will gain access to, the information, the allies, will be worth putting up with a bit more bureaucracy, and will help them to be more effective in the end. 

Needless to say, Angela does not agree.

To her, reinstating Overwatch is only one step down a slippery slope towards ending up back where they were, before, another explosion, more people torn apart, more years of her life spent trapped in an organization she despises because she fears that leaving would mean the deaths of people about whom she cares deeply.

Fareeha understands, she does, even if she does not agree.

But maybe that is intolerable, to Angela, that disagreement, maybe she thinks that Fareeha will be like her mother, or Jack, and try to force her to stay, to guilt her into it, and she thinks that she would rather leave now, while she still feels she can, rather than allowing herself to be swept up in another Overwatch.  Can Fareeha truly blame her for that?

No, but she can be hurt.  She respects Angela’s choices, her work, her values, enough to know that if her partner wants to leave, it would be for a good reason, and she would support that.

Does Angela think Fareeha would try to make her stay?  Is that why they have not discussed this?

She would not.  Even if she thinks leaving now would be overly cautious, when they are years away from any of Angela’s fears for the organization being realized, she would not hold a desire to leave against her partner.  Nor, she hopes, would Angela hold the same against her, if she decided one day that Overwatch were _too_ lawless, and returned to Helix, or another such organization. 

But she can see why Angela would be sad, would think that this might mean an end to their relationship, and she cannot blame her for feeling as she does, if that is so.  They live together, now, share meals and work frustrations and fall asleep in each other’s arms, night after night, only thing between them the air they breathe.  To suddenly live apart would be quite the shock, would change much about the way their relationship works, even if it would not be sufficient to _end_ it, and Fareeha knows that it will likely be difficult, if that is what Angela wants to do.

Still, if she does intend on returning to MSF, the very least Angela could do is _tell_ Fareeha, so that they both have time to prepare.  It is not right to hide such a thing, even if the sharing of it may be difficult.

She will give it another day, and the she will broach the subject.

A day passes, two, the better part of a week, and Fareeha begins to realize that she is, perhaps, not so brave as she has always thought herself, because she finds that she is very afraid to bring things up with Angela.

Still, she must.  Leaving things to fester is never good.

She gives herself a deadline of Friday evening, at which point she will talk with Angela no matter what else is happening in their lives, and tries to think as little as possible about how close such a day actually is.

How will she say it?  What will sound as little like an accusation as possible?  What can she do to ensure that, if she is wrong, she does not make Angela feel as if she is unable to share the true nature of the problem? 

Worrying like this is usually Angela’s purview, and acting perhaps too quickly Fareeha’s, but something—perhaps the knowledge that this is much like the end of her parents’ relationship—is making it seem impossible to step up and to do something about this, anything.

Fortunately for Fareeha, Angela tells her on Thursday evening that the two of them need to talk. 

Or, perhaps, unfortunately, because she does not say about what, and that leads to a whole host of new worries, because she is no longer in control of the situation at all, and because it is so very unusual for such a request to be made.

Although she can be quite authoritative when they are working, or when she is trying to get her point across in the midst of some argument about ethics or morality, Angela is not a particularly demanding lover, rarely asks that Fareeha change anything without any good reason.  In fact, even when she _has_ a good reason, she seems hesitant to ask for things, either because she is being sensitive to Fareeha’s past, and the ways in which demands about how she ought to live her life make her uncomfortable, or because it is a part of her own personality; Fareeha is not sure which.  Perhaps a combination of the two. 

This is made even worse by the fact that, for the better part of three weeks, Angela has obviously been avoiding this conversation, and therefore her sudden willingness to talk may be indicative of some decision being made, of some sort of _finality_ , one which Fareeha is undoubtedly wholly unprepared for.

No matter the reason, Angela requesting things of her is a rare enough event that when Fareeha finds herself at last being sat down by her lover, told very seriously that they need to discuss something, and that Angela understands that what she is asking will not be easy—she panics, just a bit.

(Not outwardly, of course.  Years in the field have taught her to appear calm under almost any circumstances, and although she prefers to allow herself to express emotions freely around Angela, feels comfortable enough to do so, this is not the time for that.  It would surely only make things more difficult for the both of them.)

Normally, when Angela is nervous, or is about to make a request, she rambles, drifts into scientific justifications or apologies or both, depending on the context, but this time, she cuts to the chase as soon as Fareeha says, “I’m listening.”

“I know you’ve been smoking,” Angela tells her, voice something close to the one she uses when working, but tinged with an emotion that is not there when she chides the rest of them, “And I need you to quit.”

Well, it is not as bad as Fareeha had feared, she supposes.  This is not the end to their relationship at all, is not Angela declaring that she is leaving, because even after several years she has yet to accept the basic conceit of the Recall, that it is necessary that an organization such as Overwatch exist in the world.  Nor is it something too difficult for either of them to put words to, something internal to Angela that controls her moods and stops her from being happy even when she feels she ought to.  No, it is something both simpler and more complicated at once, is not one of the many things she has an answer to, not _You can leave, if you feel like you need to.  I’ll still love you, if you’ll let me,_ and not _We can work through this together,_ but instead something that Fareeha has assured Angela time and again that she _wants_ to stop, but cannot.

No, she would not have guessed that this were about her smoking, not given an entire year’s time.  After all, Angela chastises her for answering that she smokes _occasionally_ with every routine physical.  _It’s bad for your health,_ she says, as if Fareeha did not know.

(She does.  That is why her smoking is only a rare thing, on days when she is the most frustrated, and something she does alone, in secrecy.  It embarrasses her, the chemical dependence, and she wishes she had never picked it up.  Another thing to blame her mother for—but Ana has, evidently, quit in the years she was dead, and far more successfully than any of Fareeha’s attempts, with less incentive.)

“You _need_ me to?”  It is strange phrasing.  Normally, Angela tells her that she _should_ , and frames it as a problem for Fareeha, personally, her future health and her performance in the field.  This is different.

“Yes,” says Angela, voice steady, but not enough so to hide the way the vowel stretches in her mouth, accent coming through more pronounced—a sign she is nervous, or otherwise emotional.  As she says it, she avoids eye contact.

(Not that that is particularly notable, in and of itself, for Angela often avoids eye contact.  Rather, it stands out to Fareeha now because of the context of the conversation.)

“And why,” Fareeha asks, very carefully, “Is that?”  Angela is not leaving her, as now she knows, but she spent so much time worrying that something was very wrong between the two of them that she is still feeling on her guard.

Angela gives her an answer about secondhand smoke, about how she herself is going to be affected, if they continue to live together, about Fareeha ought to take both of their health into account.  She is professional about it, lists numbers, and figures, offers even to bring up a chart, and it would be believable, if Fareeha were anyone else. 

But she is not, she can tell immediately that the speech she is being given is _very_ rehearsed.

“Bull _shit_ ,” Fareeha tells her, “If you worried about secondhand smoke you wouldn’t spend so much time around Jesse.”

Angela does not concede the point, but she does bite her lip, and tug at her hair in the way that she only does when she is very nervous.  “I don’t live with Jesse,” says she, and that is true, and there is something to her statement that makes it slightly more believable, but Fareeha cannot quite place what that is.

“Angela…” Fareeha says, voice not quite chastising, but reproachful.  “We both know that isn’t what this is about.”

A moment between them, then two, then three.  That Fareeha is right, they both know, but whether or not Angela will acknowledge as much is another matter.  Clearly, whatever the true source of Angela’s sudden worry about her health is, it is difficult for her to discuss, or they would have had this conversation weeks ago, when first Angela started to look at Fareeha strangely.  As impatient as Fareeha can often be, and as much as she wants to push, she knows that this is not the time for such.

“No,” Angela finally admits, looking down towards her lap, “It isn’t.”  Another pause, in which Fareeha says nothing, waits for her partner to speak, and after a moment, she does, “An old colleague contacted me last month,” a shaky breath, “His husband… It’s cancer.  Terminal.”  Now, Angela meets her eyes, and her voice is decidedly more professional, detached in the way that she has to be when doing her job, accepting the reality that her patients will die, sometimes, “He wanted to know if there was anything I could do, sent me his charts.  He knows, of course, that my specialty is trauma, not oncology, that nanites weren’t built for that, and he knew there wasn’t any hope but… I understand it.  I do.  When it’s people you care about—hoping for the impossible… We all do.  I understand it but, Fareeha—”  Her voice breaks, then, and she does not continue.

“Shh,” Fareeha tells her, trying to be soothing, places a hand on her knee and rubs small circles with her thumb, “I’m here, it’s fine, I—”

“It’s _not_ fine, Fareeha!”  Angela’s vehemence is surprising; she says _Fareeha_ so emphatically that the _ḥāʾ_ in her name is elided entirely, too difficult for Angela to pronounce with such intensity. 

“Okay,” Fareeha says, “I’m sorry,” and she is, did not mean to make things worse.

“Are you?” A demand, not a question.

“Of course I’m—”

“ _Then quit!_ ”  Angela does not yell, quite, out of respect for the fact that Fareeha finds such very uncomfortable, but her voice is very insistent, and Fareeha is certain that if she were anyone else, Angela would be doing so.

(Of course, if Fareeha were anyone else, they might not be having this conversation at all.  This is because Angela’s friend’s husband is dying, is about her fear, newly renewed, of losing those close to her, of the idea that taking a lover means opening oneself up to the potential loss of said person.  It is not really about Fareeha’s bad habits at all.)

If she did not know already how badly the words would be taken, Fareeha would suggest that Angela take a deep breath.  However, Fareeha _does_ know better, so after a moment’s pause, Angela’s words ringing in the air between them, what she says, instead is, “I’ve tried,” a quiet admission, and a very difficult one.

This, Angela did not know, for Fareeha has never mentioned it.  It embarrasses her, the failure, feels more shameful than the habit itself.  Both she and Angela are people accustomed to achieving their goals, to succeeding at that which they set their minds to, so to not have been able to do this?  It is hard for Fareeha to acknowledge, feels like a poor reflection on her character.  Maybe if she had tried harder, or longer, then—

Some of her discomfort, her guilt, her shame must have shown on her face, because now it is Angela who reaches out, puts a hand on hers, “I’m sorry,” says she, “I don’t mean to… I’m sure this isn’t helpful.” 

“It isn’t,” Fareeha admits, “But I understand that you’re worried.”

“But I know better,” Angela tells her, and now _she_ sounds guilty.  “Shame isn’t an effective motivator when treating addiction, so I shouldn’t have—”

“I’m not your patient,” Fareeha interrupts, somewhat tersely.  “Not here.”  They agreed, a while ago, that for their relationship to remain healthy they had to leave their respective positions at the door to the quarters.  No pulling rank from Fareeha, or health lectures from Angela. 

“You’re right,” Angela says, “I wouldn’t worry this much if you were.  I just… I wish I knew how to help you.”  A hand goes up to forestall Fareeha saying that she does not need help, “It scares me,” her voice is still less confident than before, “Knowing that if something were to happen—my nanites repair damage.  They don’t eliminate organic material, even _harmful_ organic material.  So if you were to get sick… I couldn’t do anything, Fareeha.  I’d have to watch you die.”

“I won’t die,” Fareeha promises her.

“Of course you will,” Angela says, and laughs in the sort of way that is not at all humorous, “We all will.”

“Well, yes,” Fareeha is forced to admit, “But not like that.  You know it’s more likely that I’ll get shot down than—”

“Yes,” they both know death in the field is more likely than anything else, “But I can’t stop you from going out there.  I know that, and I respect that you—I don’t _agree_ ,” Angela clarifies, “But your reasons for wanting to fight are good ones.  So I won’t try to… This is different.”

It is, Angela has a point.  If Fareeha dies in the field, at least she is dying _for_ something.  Lung cancer would be a senseless end, after all that she has survived, and it is not the sort of death she wants, wasting away.

“Okay,” Fareeha says.

“Okay?”

“I’ll try again, for you,” and she means that part, the _for you_ , because she thinks it will be easier, to quit with someone else in mind, than to do it for herself.  All her life, Fareeha has dedicated herself to protecting other people, and she thinks that maybe if she frames this as saving Angela the heartache of watching her die then this might be easier.  “But,” says she, and watches Angela’s face fall at the word, “I need you to do something for me, too.”

“Being?”  Angela does not sound leery, exactly, but she certainly does not sound enthusiastic, either. 

“I need you to _tell_ me,” Fareeha says, “When you start worrying about something like this.”

“I did tell you,” Angela is defensive, now.

“Yes,” Fareeha agrees, “After _weeks_ of looking at me like I’d just told you someone was dyi—looking at me sadly.”  Perhaps she ought to have thought that sentence through, a bit more.  “I thought you were going to break up with me!”

“What?  I was _worried_ about you, Fareeha, I wouldn’t—”

“I know,” Fareeha says, “Now.  But what was I supposed to think?  You kept sending me sad looks, and avoiding me, and there was clearly _something_ you wanted to say.”

“I’m sorry,” Angela tells her, and sounds sincere, “I didn’t mean to worry you it’s only that—I’m always worried about you dying.  I thought I’d be able to push it away, eventually, not accept or ignore it but… tune it out?  Like I do worrying about you dying in the field.  I didn’t want to bother you about something that wasn’t—it _is_ less of a concern, like you said, so…”

“Worrying is okay,” Fareeha tells her, “But you need to talk to me, because I worry too.”

“I will,” Angela tells her, “I promise.”

“We can work on it,” Fareeha says, perhaps slightly less optimistically.  “We _both_ have things to work on, together.”

Accepting help is not easy, not for either of them, but for each other, they can try.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW for references to alcoholism, tho its like... again, pretty light. but i do feel like i should warn just in case

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i originally wrote this the day before baptistes comic came out (intending to post it during AX) and like... wow... mchu saved my life by confirming that angela and baptiste had met pre-canon bc i didnt wanna take one specific line of the dialogue here out.
> 
> and he double saved my life w the confirmation of angelas recipe in the ovw cookbook. i just had to edit her drink of choice
> 
> this fic specifically references the fic immediately previous to it in this series "drink (split the night wide)" and if u dont wanna read that just know that it has to do w angela and being jewish and her very complicated relationship to. certain things. anyway...

As a doctor, Angela is expected to know what is healthy, and what is not, and to advise her teammates accordingly, to listen to them recount their health history and to give them recommendations.  She tells Jesse to quit smoking, asks Lúcio to gain five pounds, if he can, and does her best to not frown when she hears Lena’s drug history—it is in the past, now, but it still worries her.  All of this is fine, is normal, is part of her duties as the team doctor, and is not something she lets concern her too much, other than the occasional chiding.  She wants for everyone to be happy, and to be healthy, and does her best to try and help them all achieve that.  Sometimes, they role their eyes, or they protest, tell her to give it a rest, but they know, all of them, that she is only doing this because she cares about them, wants them to be well.  Therefore, they tolerate it, and all is fine, as far as Angela is concerned.  Everything is exactly as she expected it would be, when she accepted this job.

Or, it is, until that same scrutiny is turned on herself.  Unsurprisingly, this is far less agreeable to her.  Giving others recommendations for the sake of their health is all well and good, but others advising _her_?  She did not sign up for this.  And what authority have they, anyway?  Surely, she knows better, being the only one among them who went to medical school, the only one among them who has truly dedicated their life to this. 

Now, there are things she could be doing better, of course there are.  No one lives a perfectly healthy life, and that is simply a reality of being human.  It would be impossible to have no bad habits.  For example, Angela knows her diet could be a bit more varied,  that she could perhaps consume less carbs, and eat more vegetables, but many of the things she knows how to cook—comfort foods she remembers from her childhood, and painstakingly taught to herself, as a teenager, desperate to recreate her mother’s recipes before she forgot the flavor, and it faded from her memory like the sound of her father’s laugh—are primarily noodle based, or full of breads, and potatoes.  Could she learn new recipes?  Yes, of course, but these ones she is fond of because they are one final connection to her childhood, one she worked hard to maintain, and she does not think that sacrificing that is worth the slight benefit to her health, when all is said and done.

(What else does she have, besides food?  Almost none of her parents’ possessions survived.  Only a few photographs which she had compiled for a school project, and were lucky enough to be in her backpack when they fled their home for the final time, and a few items which were fireproof and sturdy, or on the mantel of the one wall that did not collapse.  When her parents died, she was still so very, very young, remembers little of them, far less than she would like.  But food?  If she tries, she can recreate her mother’s recipes, which were learned from her mother, and her mother before her, and further and further back, all the way from the defining of the laws of Kashrut.  It is a tangible connection, one of the very few she has, and she can imagine what it would have been, for her mother to have taught her, for them to have cooked together, to have bonded in the kitchen on holy days like so many Jewish women before them.  Maybe it would never have happened, because her mother never knew her to be a woman, but she thinks the dream is worth keeping, that her mother would have loved her as she is, and not just as she was.)

She could stand to exercise more, too, or more regularly, rather.  Yes, she is in combat often, but her suit does a loot of the work for her, cuts out the need to run, and to climb, allows her to keep her focus only on what is important—the health of her teammates.  Consequently, she gets less exercise than the rest of her team, and while she does work to maintain her arm strength, lest she need to carry someone from the field, she does not, perhaps, get as much cardio in as she should.  Now, Fareeha is making her jog in the mornings, joining her partner on her regular run, or at least the first lap of it, and it is good for her, she knows, but she _hates_ it, and generally avoids keeping up with the routine when Fareeha is away on a mission.  Surely, she achieves target heartrate often enough with the scares her teammates give her.  What more does she need? 

( _Maybe_ Fareeha has a point here, so Angela does not grumble too often when she finds herself woken far earlier than she would like in the morning, and dragged out of bed to go run.  It is not her ideal way to spend a morning, but it is nice, to be with Fareeha, and is a trade-off, after having asked Fareeha to quit smoking for good.  Both of them are bettering their health, so Angela feels she has no room to complain.  The considerable uptick in the frequency that they have shower sex before work is a nice bonus, besides.)

More sleep might be beneficial, of course, but one could say that about every one of them.  Unlike Fareeha, Angela does not suffer from insomnia, but the near-constant jetlag and midnight interruptions for some medical emergency or another have taken their toll on her sleep schedule, preventing her from ever feeling _truly_ well rested.  But what can be done about that?  She is not going to nap in the middle of the day, like Fareeha sometimes does, or take a day off to rest, like many of the others do.  When has she earned that luxury?  Unlike the rest of them, if Angela takes a day off, it is not simply one that would have been spent training, or filing paperwork, or some other distraction, it is a day she could have spent working towards a cure for one of the world’s many ailments, time she could have used to make another breakthrough, to improve her nanites, or her resurrection tech, and by so doing save countless people, in the future.  Is it worth that, for her to sleep?  How could she possibly put the lives of others behind her exhaustion?

(If she does sleep, she knows, she will only have nightmares, will only see again and again the faces of those whom she let die.  She should have been better, must still be, and the only way to do that is to work harder.  When she is dead—then she can rest.  Until then, what right has she?  Every minute spent not working is another life she might have saved, and despite what others have said, that she has a god complex, she does not think herself above anyone, knows just how much she has failed.  That is why she does not _deserve_ to rest, not yet, may never feel that she does.  If the day comes when she has beaten death entirely, when she can guarantee that no one else will be orphaned as she was, then she can sleep easily, finally, and not dream of what it was to watch a building collapse on top of her father, to feel the warmth of her mother’s arms fade around her.)

So, she does not feel the need to change anything, really, thinks her life is fine as it is.  By her own standards, as a professional, most everything falls within acceptable parameters.  Her weight, her blood pressure, her substance use, all are perfectly acceptable.  Maybe she could stand to get a bit more sleep, but she is not suffering for it, not really, has not noticed in herself any of the warning signs that one would associate with the beginnings of adverse effects from sleep deprivation. 

A little less coffee, a little more sleep, these things would do her well, but they are hardly major areas of concern.  Sometimes, Fareeha grumbles about them, tells Angela she should be home earlier, sleep more, but it is less a _problem_ and more good-natured chastising.  Angela knows from her tone that she is not angry, or even truly annoyed, just a little worried, sometimes, and that is fine, really.  Both of them know she does not have a problem, not really.

Or, both of them know she does not have a problem with _sleep_ , rather.  If one asked Angela, of course, she would say that she does not have a problem with anything, and medically speaking, she does not, does not meet the parameters for any of her bad habits to be of concern.  Medically speaking, she is perfectly healthy—or, at least, the ways in which she is not perfectly healthy are well under control.  She is not at an elevated risk for anything in particular, except perhaps for breast cancer, but she is aware of what genes she carries and checks, thoroughly, to ensure that she is still well.  Since replacing her spine with a cybernetic one in her teen years, she does not have any form of permanent disability, either, nor chronic illness.  By all accounts she is _well._

(Technically, of course, she does still have a disability, and her new spine is merely a very high-tech assistive device, but none of her colleagues know that, think that she merely enhanced herself for the purpose of flying the Valkyrie, and that is more than fine by her.  But there is, of course, ever present, the risk that something will eventually malfunction, and she will need to build herself a new spine all over again, that in the meantime she will not be able to walk, or to stand, unassisted.  Most of the time, she does not think about it; when she was fifteen, she remembers the fear that consumed her, the poorness of her prognosis, the knowledge that, within a decade, the vertebrae of her spine would be fused to themselves and she would need to use a wheelchair—fine, save for the fact operating theaters are all built for abled surgeons, and not for her, and it would mean that her dream of saving others, of being a surgeon, would be stolen from her.  Now, she is pushes it from her mind, often as she can, because that reality is not the one she has lived, and it would not do to waste her time in worrying about the fact that the base she lives on is _still_ not accessible, maybe never will be, and everything she does is on borrowed time.  If she thought about that too often, the fear would consume her.  No, she is well, _has_ to be, is by all accounts a perfectly healthy person.)

All accounts, save for Fareeha’s.

In the beginning of their relationship, it is not a problem, and nothing changes over the course of the time they are together.  Angela is as she has always been—if anything, several of her worse habits improve, slightly, if only because she does not want to worry Fareeha.  In many ways, Angela is the healthiest she has ever been, by the time she and Fareeha have been together for two years.  For this reason, she is quite taken aback when, one day, Fareeha suggests suddenly that she might have a problem.  A _drinking_ problem, at that.  Of all the things to worry about, Fareeha has focused somehow on the one thing that is perfectly normal about her.

To Angela, such a notion is ridiculous.  She does not drink often, and almost never to the point of intoxication.  If she were to do an annual check-up on herself, and answered honestly about her habits, a doctor would not be concerned in the slightest.  Even when she considers her habits by the strictest of standards, everything is fine.  Once or twice a week, she has a nightcap, but even that is thoroughly diluted by tea, and yes, she _used to_ have wine with meals, sometimes, but she does not do so nearly so often any more, because she takes dinner with Fareeha, who never drinks.  That is fine, that is normal, and there are some benefits to the occasional glass of red wine, even.

And what does Fareeha know, anyway?  She _never_ drinks, never has, is not sober but instead never picked up the habit, surrounded as she was by people more observant than she.  How would she know, if Angela did have a problem?  And why has she suddenly reached this conclusion, with nothing at all being different from how it was before?

What has Angela done differently?  Nothing she can think of, not in the past few months.  It is early summer, and she always sleeps better in the heat, finds it exhausting, and has felt no need, therefore, to drink anything before bed.  There is no wine in their quarters, either, has not been for some time, because even if Fareeha says she does not mind Angela drinking in front of her—or _did_ not mind, rather—it feels strange, to be the only one drinking, makes Angela feel a bit out of place, even if she knows it is fine, makes her self-conscious about the decision to do so.

When Fareeha brings it up, she does not even say why.  All she says is this, when Angela calls her from Manila to report that all of them are well, and that the three of them are going to be staying in their temporary accommodations for the evening before flying home, and splitting a bottle of whiskey between the them, is, “I hope you won’t drink _too_ much.”

“Of course not,” Angela says, “I never do.”

From Fareeha’s tone, she can tell immediately that her partner disagrees, “You do sometimes.”

“What?”  Her confusion is genuine, not at all affected.  Since when?  Other than Pesach, and Purim, Angela cannot remember the last time she was drunk.  January, on the anniversary of her parents’ deaths?  “I don’t!  Why would you say that I—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Fareeha says, and Angela hates how dismissive her tone is, as if she just gets to bring that up and decide to _drop_ it, just like that.  “Be safe and have fun.”

“ _Don’t worry about it?_ ”  How is Angela _not_ supposed to worry about her partner suddenly telling her this, not supposed to wonder why it is now a matter of discussion when it never was before?  “Of course I’m going to worry about it!  I don’t know why you think that—I haven’t been doing anything differently, and you’ve never had a problem before.  You can’t just say something like this and then just—just wave it away.”

Silence from Fareeha, although Angela is certain she has not hung up, and then, “I shouldn’t have brought it up now.  I’m sorry.”

“That isn’t…” Angela does not know how to say what she means, does not know how she feels about this conversation at all.  Yes, Fareeha should not have brought it up now, because they cannot have a proper dialogue about it, and she does not know how to address the matter, does not even know what brought this _up_ , and knows she does not have _time_ to try and figure all of this out, before Jesse and Baptiste get back.  “Can we talk about this when I’m home?”

“Okay,” Fareeha tells her, “Sure.  Have a good night, I love you.”

“I love you too,” says she, and does not say that her night will not be so good, now, because she is going to be worrying about this.  There would be no point in telling Fareeha such, nothing accomplished.  Clearly, Fareeha did not intend to bring this up tonight, and there is no use in making her feel guilty for doing so—particularly when Angela wants her to be honest about whatever it is that caused this, so that she can understand what it is Fareeha is thinking.

Still, it is on Angela’s mind all night.  She is far less enthusiastic than she might normally be, and barely joins in on the drinking, limits herself to _one_ glass and one glass only.  That is fine.  That is normal.  If she had a _problem,_ like Fareeha seems to think, then she would not be able to stop, but she can. 

Luckily, Baptiste and Jesse are far too caught up in one another to notice any change in Angela’s behavior, and to question her.  What would she tell them?  Jesse is her best friend, yes, and Baptiste is perhaps the only person on their team qualified to give her a medical opinion, but she does not want—this is private.  No one needs to know the details of her argument with Fareeha, if, in fact, it is an agreement, and she certainly does not need any of them questioning her competence.  They need to know they can rely on her, all of them, and the implication that she—

No.  Best not to dwell on it.  She is dependable, she is, always has been and always will be.  Never does she let anything come between herself and her work, and she is certainly not a person with any sort of _problem_.  When she was told that she would not be able to perform surgery anymore, one day, that she was going to be paralyzed for the rest of her life—she stopped that, she halted the inevitable, she found a way to keep working.  Why would she let something like drinking interfere with her work?

She would not.  She does not.  She is diligent, is dedicated, would give anything of herself to save others, always.  Her sleep, her peace of mind, her life.  Fareeha must know that, surely.

She must.

Yet, when Angela looks back, when she considers the past few weeks, past few months, she realizes that Fareeha _has_ been treating her differently, has been offering other ways to help her fall asleep besides tea in the evenings, or offering to prepare said tea herself and leaving out the liqueur entirely.  So there is a problem there, but not with Angela.  She has been doing things in the same way she always did, drinking no more and no less.  She is certain of that, because she knows how often she has to go out to buy more.

Always, she does that shopping herself, because she does not need anyone to know what she drinks, does not want them to lose any confidence in her, for any reason, and okay, maybe _that_ is a problem, the shame she associates with drinking, but her use?

It is fine.

(Of course, Angela is aware that if she did have a problem, she would not know it, would think that everything was fine, was justified.  That is the case with almost all addicts, at least in the beginning.  But she is a doctor, a _genius_ one at that, so surely she would know?  No.  She knows enough to know that being intelligent does not exempt one from being human, and that worries her more.  What if Fareeha is _right_ and she just cannot see it?)

As best she can, she puts her worries out of her mind, has only the one glass and then, when the other two are done, goes to bed.

For once, she cannot sleep.  Instead she tosses, she turns, she wonders—what changed, for Fareeha?  What did she see that she would not, could not before?  If it were anyone but Fareeha, Angela would content herself with thinking it was nothing, but she trusts Fareeha, above anyone else, and if Fareeha is concerned, then she knows that she should be, too. 

Against her, the sheets are too hot, made sticky by her sweating, and the night air is stifling.  She needs to get up, to cool off, to try moving so that she can work off some of her nervous energy and then find rest, at last.  It is a good plan, at least in theory, but when she gets up, and she wanders into the little kitchen area of the rooms they are staying in, she finds she instinctively goes to make herself a drink, the usual kind, and thinks _fuck._

Maybe Fareeha is right, after all.

But there is nothing to be done for it now.  Nothing but to drink a glass of water, two, to strip down out of her pajamas and try to sleep on top of the sheets, in a way that is more comfortable in the heat.  It is nothing Jesse and Baptiste have not seen before, anyway.

Eventually, she sleeps.  She sleeps, and she wakes, and she laughs at how red Jesse’s face is when he goes to rouse her, as if they did not share a room before she transitioned, as if he had not seen her naked countless times in those days.  Teasing him about this, she forgets entirely the disturbance of the night previous, thinks only of funnier, more pleasant things. 

When she returns, Fareeha must have forgotten, too, for she does not broach the matter again, and Angela almost forgets about it entirely.  _Almost._

When after a very long day she thinks about grabbing a bottle of wine from the communal kitchen so that she can have it with her spaghetti, she hesitates to grab the glass, and when she is going to sleep in the evenings, she does her best not to linger within view of the kitchen, thinks to remove that temptation entirely by doing so, and she almost, _almost_ says no, when after a particularly rough day of arguing about strategy, during which she and Fareeha had a rare, but very forceful and public, professional disagreement, Jesse again invites her to spend the evening with him and Baptiste, so that she has time to cool down before going back to her and Fareeha’s quarters.

(It is very rare that she and Fareeha argue, _exceedingly_ so, and they never yell, not after the first time.  This is perhaps the third argument they have had in their entire relationship, really, because they resolved to do better, following the first, to try and to talk things through before they got to that point, to not accuse, to be more understanding.  Almost always, it works, and their disagreements are only ever professional, do not seep into their personal life at all anymore, because they have decided not to allow them to.  But Jesse does not know this, because it is private to Angela and Fareeha only.)

“Jesse invited me to stay over with him tonight,” she says, thinking it will be funny to Fareeha, “He thought I’d need time to cool down.”  From her tone, it is evident that she thinks this is ridiculous.

Fareeha, however, does not, and her countenance darkens at that, “Him and Baptiste?” says she, and it sounds almost like an accusation.

“Is that a problem?”  If Angela sounds defensive, it is because she is feeling so.  Jesse is her oldest friend, and she and Baptiste do not always see eye to eye, exactly, but they have the same goals, in the end, and they can look past their differences regarding the necessity of violence enough to respect one another, and yes, enjoy each other’s company in the time that they are not working.  Why would Fareeha disapprove?

“I don’t know.  Will it be?” 

Angela feels like she is missing something, but does not know _what_.  “Is it because Baptiste is there?  You never had a problem when it was Jesse and I.”  That does not make sense in the least.  Fareeha and Baptiste get along very well.  Unless… “This isn’t about the fact that Baptiste and I fucked, right?”

Now it is Fareeha who is shocked, “ _What?_ ”

Evidently it was not that, and now Angela feels like she has made the situation worse.  “It was years ago,” she clarifies, quickly, “A one-night stand.”  She has never mentioned it because it was never relevant—these days, Baptiste identifies as gay, has since before the two of them reconnected, and she is rather embarrassed to admit that at the time she slept with him he was still an active Talon agent. 

(She did not think it was necessary to ask every attractive stranger if they worked for an internationally reviled terrorist organization, especially the _nice_ ones who were very actively involved in charity work.  So sue her.)

“No,” says Fareeha, “No, I don’t care about—Baptiste, _really?_ ”

“He’s handsome,” Angela crosses her arms, “And very nice.”

“Yes,” Fareeha agrees, “He is, but could you have gone for someone more obviously gay?”

Well, Angela is not sure what to say to that.  Now that she thinks about it, everyone else _did_ seem to think he was gay, at the time, but he initiated things, and anyway, that is not the point of this conversation, now is it?

“Okay,” says she, changing the subject as quickly as she can, and certain that her face is absolutely bright red, “So if you’re not worried about the fact that he and I are—” What, exactly?  Exes is far too generous a term.

“I’m not,” Fareeha interrupts her, and crosses into where Angela is still standing in their kitchen, places a hand on her forearm.  “I’m really not.  I know you wouldn’t cheat on me.”

“Good,” says Angela, because if Fareeha _had_ thought that she was doing so, they would have had to have had a very long talk about what sort of person, exactly, Angela is.  She has absolutely no interest in anyone but Fareeha, these days, and she hopes that her past with dating men would not factor into that.  Not that she thinks Fareeha would believe such a thing but—well, she does not know what it is Fareeha has a problem with, right now, and that was the only possible explanation she could come up with.

A pause, and then, “So why don’t you want me to go?”

“Jesse is a heavy drinker,” Fareeha says, as if Angela did not know that, had not chastised him for as much many times, and the damage he is doing to his liver.  “And Baptiste drinks pretty regularly, too.”

(An understatement.  He in fact drinks daily, but not to excess, and so Angela only gives him a stern look at his regularly checkups, and says nothing more.  In general, she thinks his use of exo boots is a far greater concern, as there have not been any studies as to how long-term use affects the joints in the ankles and knees.)

“Yes,” Angela agrees, not really sure where this is going.  “But _you_ don’t have a problem spending time with either of them.”

“I don’t drink when I’m with them.”

Ah.  This is about her supposed ‘drinking problem.’  Why did she not realize sooner?  “I don’t always, either,” says she, and takes a half step back, out of Fareeha’s reach.  “And I don’t see why you’re concerned.  I know you’ve somehow reached the conclusion that I’m—that I _have a drinking problem_ —but I don’t.  I’ve been drinking _less_ since we moved in together.”

A frown from Fareeha, who thankfully does not move to close the gap between them again, even though she likes to stand closer to people than Angela does, in general, thinks it polite, “I never said you had a drinking problem.”

“You most definitely did.”  For weeks, it has been bothering her whenever she considers having a glass.

“No,” Fareeha says, “I just said that sometimes you drink too much.  That isn’t the same thing.”

“Isn’t it?”  Angela does not want to argue semantics.  Fareeha has been speaking English her whole life, and Angela learned it as a fourth language in her late teen years.  When it comes down to that, Fareeha will _win_ , no matter how fluent Angela would like to believe that she is.  Even were the argument not in English, Fareeha might win, because she is simply better with words.  “I don’t even know how drinking came into this.  I just thought it would be funny that Jesse thought I’d want to spend the night—as if we can’t handle our disagreements like adults.”

(Right now, Angela is in fact doubting their ability to do just that, and it bothers her more than it perhaps should.  It is normal and natural that sometimes couples will misunderstand each other, is it not?  But this feels—she feels cornered, _is_ cornered, literally, since her step back earlier left her in the corner of their kitchen, back to the counter.)

“Yes,” Fareeha says, “But drinking was an implied part of the invitation.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.  Jesse didn’t say anything about drinking.”  Actually, he did not say anything about what they might be doing at all, only said that if she did not want to go directly back to her quarters, tonight, it was fine.  She laughed him off before he had the chance to offer up any specifics.

“He didn’t have to,” Fareeha says, “He thinks you’re stressed, after our disagreement earlier,” Angela was, a little, but she is far more stressed _now_ , she thinks, “And when Jesse’s stressed, what does he do?”

Ah.  Well, Fareeha does perhaps have a point.  Unfortunately, getting blackout drunk _is_ how Jesse deals with conflict, despite all of Angela’s efforts to stop him from doing so, and she can see why Fareeha would assume that he would offer to let her do so, in the comfort of his quarters, away from prying eyes, but “That doesn’t mean _I’d_ do that.”  Angela is her own person, with her own thoughts, and _certainly_ better impulse control than Jesse has.

“You’re right,” Fareeha says, “But I’m worried about you, Angela.”

“I don’t—” Angela starts, stops, “Can we have this conversation somewhere else?”

(She says this because she does not like being literally backed into a corner, and that is the only reason.  It has nothing to do with the fact that, in the kitchen, all the alcohol she owns was within arm’s reach, and she thought about having a drink—just one—because she is stressed.  Because she does not think that, she _does_ not, it is only a fleeting consideration, really, because she _does not have a problem._ )

“Of course,” Fareeha says, stepping aside so she can make her way out of the kitchen.  “Living room or bedroom?”

“Outside?”  Suddenly, their quarters feel too claustrophobic for her.

At that, Fareeha bites her lip, “If we do that, someone might overhear us.”

“I don’t think anyone’s coming within five meters of the two of us, after this afternoon,” Angela says, and it is true.  Everyone else was far more unnerved by the two of them arguing than they were, because no matter how forceful their disagreement was, it was just professional, and not personal for them.  But none of the others know that, for they have not been privy to the private conversations Fareeha and Angela have had about keeping their work and personal lives separate. 

“That’s fair,” Fareeha says, and then, “We have to talk about that later, too.  Hardly our most professional behavior.”

“It wasn’t so uncommon for arguments like that to happen, in the old Overwatch,” Angela says.  At least she and Fareeha do not shout at each other, or slam their hands down on the table.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Fareeha says, and Angela thinks, _right_.  Fareeha is so very often better about these things than she.

In silence, they walk from their quarters and to the little garden Fareeha built for her, both of them in step with one another, not even having to think about it, so used are they to flying together.  Just as Angela predicted, everyone else on base gives them a wide berth.  She understands, and feels badly about it, thinks that perhaps treating Fareeha as if they were not dating when they are both working has backfired, now, for everyone _knows_ they are together, and treats their arguments accordingly.  They will have to have these disagreements in one of their office’s in the future.

When they reach the garden, they sit together on the little bench meant for tools, pressed closer together than they might normally be during so serious a conversation, due to lack of space.  That is fine by Angela; Fareeha’s warmth against her is far less stifling than the too-small walls of their quarters, right now.

A minute passes, two, three.  “You’re worried about me?” Angela finally prompts.  She does not want to make this too difficult on Fareeha, that being the case.  After all, she herself so often deals with her own worries poorly, says things wrongly because she is distressed, and grows only more upset by so doing.

“Yes,” Fareeha tells her, and her hand reaches down, the flesh one, holds Angela’s in it, “I have been since Passover.”

Since Pesach?  That was months ago, now.  “Why?” asks she, even if the specific holiday gives her an inkling.

“You were _really_ drunk, Angela.” 

Was she?  She does not remember—which, she supposes, is strong evidence in Fareeha’s favor.  “I suppose I was,” says she, “But you’re _supposed_ to drink at Seder, Fareeha.”

“Not that much,” Fareeha tells her, “And I know you started before you got there.”

Oh.  Well, there is no point in denying it—Angela _did_ drink more than the requisite four glasses, far more, wanted to be free of the trouble of having to think too long or too hard about what it means to survive.  For her, it is not a happy story, to live and to leave one’s former home behind.

“I did,” says she.

“And you were upset.  More than a little.”  This, too, is true, she remembers very little other than clinging to Fareeha desperately, thinking about how it so often felt like surviving was more a punishment than a mercy, and if she did not have Fareeha, what would she have?

“I was.”

“It scared me,” Fareeha tells her, and Angela feels the words like a physical blow.  Fareeha is so brave, and so strong, and Angela never wants to hurt her, _ever_ , so for this to have scared her—it must have been bad, and she regrets it immensely.  But before she can find the words to apologize, Fareeha continues, “And then I started paying more attention, after that, to your drinking.  It seems like you only do it when you’re stressed, or upset.”

“That’s hardly abnormal,” says she, but it does not feel like the truth on her tongue, “But if it worries you, I’ll cut back.”

“You don’t have to,” Fareeha says, even as her tone says _But I’d like it if you did,_ “It’s not really the quantity I’m worried about.”

“No?”  If not that, then what?

“No it’s—if you’re only drinking when you’re unhappy, or you’re anxious, that’s not healthy, is it?”  Well, Angela has not considered that.  All she worries about is _quantity_ , blood alcohol level, frequency.  When she does not offer an answer, Fareeha continues, “I just think—it’s not about Jesse, or Baptiste, really, but if you drink when you’re upset, or _because_ you’re upset, to feel better—and that’s what Jesse was suggesting you do, right?”

A nod, from Angela.  It was implied, at least, even if she did not consider it at the time she rejected his invitation—did not think about it because she was not actually distressed, and she associates drinking with that, now, thinks of it as something she does when unhappy.

“Right.  _That’s_ not healthy.  And it’s not—like you said, you don’t have a problem, yet.  But I think if that’s how you’re dealing with things, lately…” Fareeha trails off, and then, “I just don’t want it to develop into something worse, okay?”

What can Angela say to that?  Fareeha is _right._ It is not something she ever considered, so focused was she on the fact that, numerically speaking, she drinks a normal amount, perhaps _less_ than is normal, and did not once stop to think about why she was drinking.  Such is not her area of expertise, but Angela knows well enough that there is usually an underlying issue, with addiction, and just because she is not an alcoholic _yet_ does not mean that she could not become one, if she continues to drink in order to cope with stress, rather than doing so socially, as she used to. 

But it is hard to admit.  Like most people, Angela wants to be perfect, wants to be in control of her life, wants to think that she _knows_ better, that she is too smart for something like this to happen to her—but of course that is not true.  She is just as human as anyone else, just as vulnerable, just as fallible.

“I—” she starts, stops, does not know how to say what it is she is feeling, does not want to say that she agrees with Fareeha’s assessment, that this is becoming a problem.  “Okay.  I’m going to—I’ll try to cut back.”

“Thank you,” Fareeha says, leans down slightly to press a kiss to Angela’s head through her hair, before sitting back up, “And just to be clear I’m not saying you shouldn't spend time with Jesse _or_ Baptiste.  Even when there’s alcohol involved.  I just want you to be more aware of why you’re drinking, that’s all.”

“I can do that,” Angela promises, “I can.”

To be human, just as much of the rest of them—it hurts.  To know that she is less than perfect is a painful reminder of her own mortality, and all the other ways in which she has failed.  From anyone else, it would feel like an accusation, to be so reminded, would be terrifying, to be so exposed, but Angela knows, already, that Fareeha loves her despite her failings, knows that this is not a conversation intended to hurt her, is only Fareeha trying to take care of her, to ensure that she is well, or as much as she can be.  Knowing that this is because her partner loves her makes this so much easier, because even if she cannot be vulnerable for herself, she can be for Fareeha.

“That’s all I’m asking,” Fareeha tells her, and it is, Angela knows.  Fareeha does not want perfection, does not want someone who is somehow superhuman, just wants Angela to be as happy as possible.

That, she can strive for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally this was gonna be standalone and not a chapter two but i was too lazy to think of a new title. its like that. plus theyre the same theme and were written for one another so like? u know. it was planned as a set may as well throw it in one fic
> 
> hopefully ur week is great. mines been pretty sucky bc i ended up BACK in the hospital (we love having a chronic illness!) and couldnt make my flight to la so i ended up missing the con this week. BOO.
> 
> anyway hopefully u enjoyed, or whatever emotion it is u seek to gain from my fics. lmk ur thoughts!

**Author's Note:**

> i usually write things entirely in order but this was written pretty much back to front so... hopefully it still flows right? if not, eh, c'est la vie


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